Wellesley Amateur Radio Society Celebrates 75 Years!!

This piece was sent to me by Dan Brown, W1DAN, in celebration of his club's 75th birthday: The Wellesley Amateur Radio Society W1TKZ (WARS https://www.w1tkz.org/). Located in historical Wellesley, Massachusetts, WARS will be hosting a 75th anniversary dinner and party next month, May, 2026. Please visit the site link for details. Dan and his fellow club officers asked if this historic event could be hosted in the Amateur Radio News section of QRZ and I spoke with the Front Page Editor in Chief and see no reason why not! Dan is a Senior Engineer for the WGBH Educational Foundation, and well positioned to submit this article for publication.

Congratulations to the Wellesley Amateur Radio Society for this momentous occasion. Even if you are not local to the club, I think many of us here on QRZ can all agree that this is a milestone achievement.

What follows is Dan's full article about the club and all that it stands for.

Dave
W7UUU
Director, QRZ Forums

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Wellesley Celebrates 75 Years!

Dan Brown W1DAN​

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Introduction

The Wellesley Amateur Radio Society (WARS) is celebrating 75 years as a vibrant amateur radio club serving the town of Wellesley west of Boston Massachusetts. Through our Civil Defense beginnings, public service, supporting local events, Field Day and VHF contests, and exploring new technology, we have remained dynamic over the decades. In this article we will explain some of our history, highlight some things that kept our members excited about radio and talk about our celebration this year. Thanks to Nels Anderson K1UR and Scott Nacey KK6IK and Tom Kinahan N1CPE for assistance with this article and our archiving efforts.


Beginnings in Civil Defense in the 1940s

In 1940 Wellesley Civil Defense was formed and local hams joined the communications subcommittee. As a backup to telephone communications, some 20 radio sets were purchased for the control center, fixed locations such as police and fire stations, and mobile. Ervin L. Crandell W1MP of Wellesley, Thaxter A. Williams and Jonathan Roehrig W1ENE of Auburndale installed transmitters and receivers at the 14 zone posts, the Report Center, and at Police and Fire headquarters with the assistance of the fire and light departments.


When we entered World War II after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, the War Emergency Radio Service (WERS) was formed, and the town’s radio hams ran weekly nets on 2-1/2 meters AM phone to support air raid wardens and other Civil Defense needs. The town obtained a WERS CD radio callsign, and these hams used the VHF radios to support the town’s defense efforts with radios at their homes, mobile or official locations. Note that for the duration of the war hams were prevented from transmitting on the ham bands. The Wellesley hams also installed the town’s air raid sirens.


Using the ARRL’s 1942 Defense Edition Handbook and Neilson and Hornung’s Radio Operating Questions and Answers book, some Wellesley hams such as Willard Bridges W1WNO and Ted Hale W1FFO helped Wellesley Civil Defense to teach volunteers. Willard and Ted later became charter members of our club in 1951. Students who obtained their third-class radiotelephone licenses, many of whom were boy scouts and school students, reported to communications chair Jim Moir who provided each with a War Emergency Operators Permit. By January 7, 1943, over 500 people took their radio exam in Wellesley. Many drills and exercises were performed during the War, but happily we were not invaded.


Club Formed in 1951

After World War II ended in 1945 WERS was disbanded nationally, the 112MHz 2-1/2 Meter band was moved to 2-meters at 144-148MHz and amateur radio started to expand, fed by the newly radio-trained veterans. As mobile radio was taking off a small group of hams kept Wellesley Civil Defense in mind by getting together on the air socially. These included future club members Willard W1NWO and Ted W1FFO, along with Rodman Sharp W1OGM, brother Steve W1QIK, Duke Hebert W1HJ and Gordon Humphrey W1BBO.


As radio clubs popped up after the War, emergency communications efforts spread across the country, led by the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Emergency Corps (AREC). Clubs and individuals experimented with the higher frequency bands-particularly 10, 6 and 2-meters, both at home and mobile. They operated nets, assisted in real disasters and participated in the annual ARRL Simulated Emergency Tests. Ray Boardman W1BL of nearby Newton was the New England Division ARRL Emergency Coordinator at the time and would later help form the Wellesley Amateur Radio Club.


The town of Wellesley formed its Civil Defense Agency in the fall of 1950 under the direction of town CD head Neal Williams. The town appropriated $31,955 to get Civil Defense started and $2,480 for the first year for a CD radio system. Irving P. Gramkow was the first Director who then appointed MIT ’39 graduate and WWII veteran U. S. Navy Lt. Commander Donald W. Scully W1HRY as Deputy Director of Communications of the town’s Civil Defense.


As the Civil Defense structure was updated across America to defend against the new atomic bomb, these Wellesley hams formed a Civil Defense-based Wellesley Amateur Radio Society, obtained station license W1TKZ to support the town and bring in new prospective hams. With a fresh ARRL affiliation, modern Civil Defense gear, good teachers and excited youth, the club grew and was a major contributor to the town’s civil defense efforts.


The Wellesley Amateur Radio Society was formed on or before February of 1951 by three Wellesley hams, Willard Bridges W1NWO as Vice President, Ed Dillard W1RPM Secretary with Don W1HRY leading the effort as President, Trustee and Emergency Coordinator. The first “Civil Defense Communications” meeting was on February 10, 1951, at the Wellesley Hills library. The club advertised their meetings and classes in the local newspaper The Wellesley Townsman.


The 1960s

As the club grew, in the 1960s the town’s Civil Defense efforts waned as the Cold War did not result in any atomic challenges. The old guard hams were slowly supplemented by younger kids who were enthusiastic about building, operating and public service. Many kids from the local high school attended our weekly code and theory classes and obtained Novice licenses. A couple of these folks are still club members today. The club had ten Civil Defense radio sets and continued to run the net on Sunday mornings. The club supported the Northeast blackout of 1965 and the flood alert of 1968, as well as the annual veteran’s parade. The club supported messages from servicemen abroad as a few club members were also Army MARS members.

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Growth in the 1970s and ‘80s

Along with public service for our town veteran’s parade, road races, SET’s, new town youth became more active in the club, with new young President Don Chesley WA1HVS and Vice President Joe McGrath WA1JIR. Two high schoolers Scott Nacey (now KK6IK) and Rob Jaczko WA1UMU were new club members and are still involved today. These kids and teenagers had RF in their veins and enjoyed public service and now contesting with vigor. Our monthly Spark Gap newsletter began, which we still author today. We always enjoyed Field Day on the Town Hall lawn.

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One big effort was our 1976 Field Day, which was held on Long Island in Boston Harbor during our country’s bicentennial. This required extensive planning, four generators, three tube-based transceivers including a Drake TR4C, Collins KWM2A and Heath HW100, a tower with beam, a dipole and a 6-Meter beam. The club used their own water and food preparation as there were no services available on the island. This effort was covered in a local TV news piece. Another few years we held Field Day in Marthas Vinyard down Cape Cod.

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Both the late Civil Defense director George deCoen and his successor William Donahue backed WARS’s Field Day activities and other communications projects. The relationship with town government was strengthened after many events through formal thank-you letters sent by the new WARS President Don Chesley, WA1HVS and reprinted in the Townsman.


We helped the nearby Newton club install a repeater in 1976 and held our 25th anniversary party that year. We later installed our own tube-based 2-meter repeater.


Important throughout the 1970s was training new hams and upgrading existing ones with free classes, code practice sessions, and lots of novice-level activities. Twice a year we ran regular courses in Morse code, radio theory and rules to prepare students for the FCC Novice license. By early 1976, the club was running two concurrent novice classes with a combined enrollment of about 60 students. That year we added a second general meeting per month to support our increased membership. To raise money, we started having auctions and flea markets.


During the Blizzard of 1978 and later, we ran a caravan of vehicles that delivered doctors and nurses to the local hospital, all organized over VHF-FM.


In 1979 we started holding annual Christmas message fairs at a local mall, where passers-by could send a message to Santa or a family member via the NTS.

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The 1980s enjoyed more holiday message fairs at local malls with about 800 messages in 1980, 650 in 1981, 925 in 1982 and around 300 in 1983, but we added multi-station VHF contests on Mount Equinox in southern Vermont, with an elevation of about 3,840 feet in a rare contest state. This effort also supported the Vintage Sports Car Club of America (VSCCA) Mt. Equinox Hill Climb. We handled communications for that event and at the same time we operated the VHF contest. We were a top scorer back then, reaching between 3rd and 6th place nationally.

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From the late 1970’s through the early 1980s we ran the Boston Marathon race communications, organizing the start and keeping time of key runners, managed by member Dick Paret WA1ZLQ. We had hams along the racecourse, downtown by the finish line and one with the official “timer” person. To start the race, we used a shortwave receiver tuned to WWV and counted down to the official with the starting gun. This was a large undertaking.

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Here are the events we supported in the 1980s:


* Shamrock Classic Road race; held in Boston, sponsored by the Celtics

* Boston 350 Parade; one time event in 1980

* Wellesley centennial cake parade; 1980

* American Legion walk-a-thon

* Wellesley Teachers Association bike-a-thon

* Charles River Run

* Wellesley Veteran's Parade

* Wellesley Centennial Celebration 1980

* Hunnewell Estate car race

* Corporate Cup Road Race

* Wellesley Recreation Department Road race

* Tinman Triathlon


Around this time, the club was at its peak of about 130 members. We updated our repeater to a new solid-state system in 1984 and later added UHF capability. Our VHF contests usually used two or three towers and overnight operating, homebrew amplifiers and even Gunnplexers for microwave work.


During the 1970s and 1980s, of course the new personal computer was incorporated for both contest logging, SSTV, and newsletter creation, though our newsletters were still manually marked up and printed by a commercial print firm.


We ran our first packet digi-peater around 1985 and had a ham radio exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science in 1986 where we sent radiograms via packet radio.


Our 1987 Field Day was a 15A effort-that’s fifteen transmitters on emergency power! Our June VHF contest had 1,487 contacts in 348 grids.


For the U. S. Constitution’s bicentennial, we ran station W200TKZ during the week of Feb 6 to Feb 12, 1988. We ran health and welfare traffic for Hurricane Gilbert that devastated Jamaica in 1988. In 1989 we operated JOTA.


1990s-2000’s

The 1990s offered new digital modes such as PSK-31, QRP, satellite communications, continued volunteering for the Wellesley Veteran’s Parade, Field Days and VHF contests. One club member created our first website, and we transitioned from print newsletters to issue PDFs sent via email.


We still had license coaching sessions, volunteering for local events such as the Veterans parade, Head of the Charles regatta and Walk for Hunger.


In 2000 we added a modern microprocessor-based repeater controller. In 2001 a member managed the card sorting for the W1 QSL bureau and we were awarded a certificate from the ARRL Eastern Mass Section Manager Phil Temples K9HI for 50 years of ARRL Affiliation.


As home PC-based tools improved, we started to incorporate art, web-links and digital photos in our newsletters, and slowly moved from postal mailing to emailing of these issues in PDF format. In 2004 we started experimenting with Software-Defined radios with the Rock-Mite. In 2005 hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf coast, and our club donated a radio and other gear to Charlie Otnott WD5BJT in Mississippi who had lost everything. The Framingham club joined us on Field Day in 2006, and in September we entered the VHF contest after a long absence, winning first place in multi-operator for New Hampshire. 2008 brought our first entirely solar-powered Field Day.


This decade saw the loss of some longtime members who became SK’s. We strived to tell their story in our newsletter. We honored the history of Jerry NV1T, Arline W1LIO, Jack N1TPU, Barry N1BAN and others.


In 2012, we experimented further with SDR and member Rich Kumpf WF1V saved the life of a Head of the Charles Regatta participant. In 2013 we experimented with FL-Digi, and supported the Zola gang, a local group of visually-impaired hams, and dipped our toes into the fledgling Maker Movement. Members travelled to Newington for the ARRL Centennial in 2014. 2015 brought experiments with the Raspberry-Pi and Arduino computers, and our repeaters receive some updates.


In 2016 we enjoyed our first SOTA, exploration of WSPR and JT65, and in 2017 using the Amazon Alexa to control an HF transceiver with a feed from DX spotting websites. We added a Google Group for club communications, later to become Groups.io. In 2018 we joined the November Sweepstakes in Vermont. In 2019 we explored magnetic loop antennas, radio control for the blind and collaborated with New England Sci-Tech on some events.


In 2020 COVID-19 affected all of us and we moved our monthly meetings to Zoom. We also enjoyed club members WSPR efforts and posted some of our historical items online. Our weekly nets became very busy as everyone was home. 2021 we participated in Winter Field Day.


Through these years, we supported the Boston Marathon with our volunteers and allowing them to use our repeater system for the race, which was upgraded with a new C4FM system and new antennas. We always held fun Field Day and holiday party events.


Our Club Today

Today we are an active club with more members and activity than some nearby clubs. While many of our members are older, we have a few young and enthusiastic folk who bring in new interesting modes of communication, operation, 3D printing and digital projects. We hold bi-monthly meetings and each month we have a speaker talk about an interesting technical or operating topic. Our meetings are now in-person and on Zoom, and the recordings are made available. We outreach to nearby hams and groups and occasionally cooperate in events with other clubs.


Today, the club’s technical drive has been renewed with one member designing and building a software-defined repeater controller and internet linking, and another member delving deep into DSP and Field Day RF filters. Not only on Field Day, we also operate POTAs and SOTAs and other contests. Our group strives for inclusion and instruction, helping each member to have an enriched radio experience while serving the public.


Our year-long Celebration!

Our anniversary planning really started a few decades ago when we started to gather our historical documents and media to preserve them. Club members scanned many issues of our newsletter, transferred videotapes, and asked around for who may have some of our legacy material. Interviews were done with key older members, and one member visited ARRL HQ to get a copy of our 1951 affiliation application. Last year the archive effort began in earnest, with the scanning and restoration of hundreds of slides, photos and documents, transcoding VHS and DV recordings to MP4 digital, and transferring some cassette audio tapes to MP3. This fall we started researching and writing about our rich history in each newsletter and continue to do so with a large article planned for each issue through next summer. One club member reserved two new club website URL’s and re-built our website (https://www.w1tkz.org/), and our logo was updated.

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In May we will have a party at a local steak restaurant where we will have some of the older members discuss our past achievements, and to show off some of our historical documents. We will also create a couple of videos, one on our 1976 Field Day, and one being a club retrospective. We will reach out to local town and media for promotion of our milestone.


Our Archive effort and DLARC

We strive to share our legacy. With our scanning and restoration of images and documents, and the transfer of video and audio, we needed a place to store and share it all. Member Scott Nacey offered an online Network-Attached Storage (“NAS”) for temporary storage and organization; and as items were made available, we created a folder structure on the NAS and uploaded over 55GB of items. These items were batch-uploaded to DLARC storage, and all this was published online. They include all our known newsletters, hundreds of photos, Zoom meeting recordings, presentation Power-Points, our By-Laws, Constitution, videos, meeting minutes and various notes. Have a look!

https://archive.org/details/wellesey-amateur-radio


Summary

In this article we have explained some of the Wellesley Amateur Radio Society history and how we will be celebrating our 75-year anniversary. The WARS is a town staple. Through the strong management and efforts of generations of hams, we are proud of our rich history. We remain dynamic and adapt to new technology and operating opportunities, honoring our legacy of public service and growth of our members.



W1DAN Bio

Dan is a past president of the Wellesley Amateur Radio Society (“WARS”), the ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Technical Coordinator and an ARRL Life Member. He holds an Extra Class amateur license as well as an FCC General Class. Mr. Brown is a Senior Engineer for the WGBH Educational Foundation.


Dan Brown

W1DAN

(Danbrownw1dan at gmail dot com)




Images and Captions

01. WARS logo (WARS-75-Logo.png)

02. Welelsley-CD-1971.jpg. Wellesley Civil Defense March 1971. Front: Marshall Canell WA1DMC, George P. DeCoen, Roger P. Smith W1EOA. Rear: Albert Graf W1OQP, John Porter K1PRB, Llyn Rice, Walter Lenk K1YTY, William Emerson WA1EVD, Lud Fasolino WA1DRC.

03. W1TKZ-1974.jpg. WA1TBY (behind) helping young hams K1IR (then WA1QJU), UNKNOWN, WA1RGA in 1974.

04. Field-Day-1976-A.jpg, or Field-Day-1976-B.jpg. Field Day 1976 At Long Island in Boston Harbor.

05. Message-Fair.jpg. A local TV station covering our Natick Mall holiday Message Fair in 1983.

06. Hill-Race-VHF.jpg. A vintage car race AND a VHF contest atop Mount Equinox.

07. Equinox-N1CPE.jpg. Tom Kinahan N1CPE making contacts atop Mount Equinox during the VHF Contest.

08. Marathon-net-control-K1TK.jpg. K1TK running the Boston Marathon Net Control.

09. KC1FSZ-Rptr-Ctlr.jpg. Bruce Mackinnon KC1FSZ tests a prototype SDR Repeater Controller.